my one goal for the summer

I just read about a momma who was feeling discouraged by all the mommy-bloggers who are sharing their goals for the summer.

Well, I can hardly stand for that, can I?

Especially when I just explained how into rest I'm going to be for this season of my life.

And even more especially when we're supposed to be encouraging one another, we Christians.

"Love does not boast ..."

So hear this, precious discouraged momma, just wanting some rest and receiving what looks like law instead:

When you get a moment to sit down and read something (which, okay, never happens.  So go ahead, put down what you're doing and take a moment anyway), flip through your Bible to the Gospels, and you will find Good News:

You'll find that Jesus doesn't offer how-to's on goal-setting or productivity or even efficiency.  When we are weary, he offers rest and refreshment, encouraging us to choose the "one thing needed" like his friend Mary did - to sit at his feet and listen to his words, to abide in his words.

Let this be your one, simple goal for the summer:  to sit at his feet, and listen.  

The dishes will get done, somehow, sometime.  The laundry will, too.  You'll manage to feed the family.  And the rest?  The Pinterest-worthy living room decor and the photo shoot matching outfits and the extracurriculars for the children and all the rest?  They're optional anyhow.

Take a few minutes at the start of your day - even if it's while spooning baby food into that sweet little mouth - to read (yes, even aloud!) some words of Jesus.

They are your true food.

They will nourish you for your tasks (and help you to discern which tasks to do, and which to let go) far better than facebook or shopping or even texting a friend.

Summer camp (or even VBS) for the children won't do it.  Moms' groups and swimming lessons and dance lessons and summer sports (all fine and dandy things) won't do it.  Hard as it is for me to admit this, even a vacation in the islands won't do it.  Nothing will nourish you, nothing will restore your spirit, like the minutes you spend sitting at Jesus' feet.

And, this:  it is okay to sometimes sit down and gaze at the distant trees, even when your work is not done.  Because let's face it, it's never going to be done, that work.  Never.  And you will wear yourself ragged and wretched trying to stay abreast of it all.  Just stop.  Let it go.  Sit down and watch your babies (however old they are) play.  Go outside and marvel (quietly, tiredly is okay) at something God has made.

Let it feed your spirit.

Choose the one thing, this summer, that is needful:  sit at Jesus' feet, and listen.

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[and if you like sentimental rhymes, this poem - which I eventually memorized from seeing it so often - was on my mother's fridge growing up, printed on the faded front of a card.]

Priority

Take time to smell the lilacs

And feel the warm bright sun,

Take time to look at rainbows;

Don't wait till work is done:

There'll always be a cobweb,

Some finger marks or dust,

Weeds to pull, a lawn to mow,

And something gathering dust.

We must remember lilacs

Bloom just once a year,

And you can see a rainbow

Only when it's here.

~ by Shirley Harvey

one thing

Somehow at lunch the other day, we started envisioning the children in their far-off future.

Sugar at 47, we thought, would have my mother's soft smile, my Farmer's silver-streaked walnut hair, be curator of a natural history museum, and dandling her first grandbaby.

Spice, a retired dancer, would run her kennel in cargo pants (or swirly skirts, we couldn't decide) alongside one of her children, and give ballet lessons on the side.

Nice would work as a nurse in labor and delivery, and adopt a child from far away.

Lil' Snip, apprenticed by my Farmer's favorite welder, of course, would build farm equipment and, if his current exhortive style is any indicator, preach.  Or boss serfs, maybe.

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I asked my Farmer at supper that night what he thought he'd be like by 60.  He said he hadn't thought about it, but maybe he'd be enjoying his grandchildren.

Grandchildren.  Wow.  But I suppose in 20 years Sugar will have passed 30, and the others will be hard at her heels.  We might well have a lapful of grandbabies.

Who will I be by then??

Only God knows, of course, but somehow it helps a little to think so far ahead of the reality in front of me now, to have something, if not to aim for (since I've pretty well proven my inability to change anything about myself), then to look forward to.  A sort of hint, hint, if you will, to God (who I assume reads this blog even if no one else does).

I'll have traversed this treacherous terrain that I'm currently in, by then, and come out on the other side.  I'll be older, and my hair will likely have traded in chestnut for grey (although I'm hoping for silver, at least, or white, best of all).  My skin, already on its way to crepe-dom, will likely be papery over blue hilly veins:  I am thin-skinned, by both meanings of the word.  My fight for a youthful figure will have been lost for good, I suppose.  I hope I won't still be waging that futile war.  I can see glimpses of my physical destiny in my mother and her sisters, and would love to eventually inherit their cheery perspective as well.  My eyes, I pray, will still be bright with interest in everything around me.

In my musing, I glance at Randy Alcorn's Heaven on the table at my side, and suddenly I know what I want, more than anything else, when I am in the winter of my life:  I want the Spirit of Jesus so filling my heart that my eyes are filled with Heaven.  I want to be so God-love-saturated that joy and peace and compassion sprinkle everyone I'm with.


I want to have chosen the one thing needed, as Mary did.


To get there, I will need to learn to give up many things:  control (or its illusion), busy-ness (which is maybe the same thing, after all), self-preservation.... and perhaps things themselves - physical things, which take up space in our hearts and minds as well as in our shelves and attics.

I will have to learn trust, choose dependence.

Today is as good a day to start as any, I suppose:  Easter, symbolic of new life.


How shall I begin??

Jesus, Lover of my soul

Jesus, lover of my soul,

Let me to Thy bosom fly,

While the nearer waters roll,

While the tempest still is high;

Hide me, O my Savior, hide,

Till the storm of life is past;

Safe into the haven guide, 

O receive my soul at last.

Other refuge have I none;

Hangs my helpless soul on Thee;

Leave, ah leave me not alone,

Still support and comfort me.

All my trust on Thee is stayed,

All my help from Thee I bring;

Cover my defenceless head

With the shadow of Thy wing.

Thou, O Christ, art all I want,

More than all in Thee I find;

Raise the fallen, cheer the faint,

Heal the sick, and lead the blind.

Just and holy is Thy name,

I am all unrighteousness;

False and full of sin I am,

Thou art full of truth and grace.

Plenteous grace with Thee is found,

Grace to cover all my sin;

Let the healing streams abound,

Make and keep me pure within.

Thou of life the fountain art,

Freely let me take of Thee;

Spring Thou up within my heart,

Rise to all eternity.

Charles Wesley, 1740